I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. Prayer isn’t magic. When we enter into prayer with God, it isn’t expecting a genie to grant us our three wishes or Santa Claus to deliver on our wish-list for Christmas.
Prayer also isn’t about trying to manipulate God, the loving energy behind and within the universe. While we might beg, plead, or demand things of God, while we might try bargaining with God, these are not the actions that make prayer the gift that it is. We are welcome to take all of our emotions into prayer, the frustration and anger, the devastation and desolation. Prayer is a place for every emotion to be expressed. But all the begging, pleading, bargaining or demanding in the world, when offered in prayer, doesn’t make something happen, no matter how much we want it to.
So why do we bother to pray? Surely, in the midst of this pandemic there are thousands upon millions, of every faith and of no particular faith who have been praying, and still we are stuck in our homes, dealing with financial stress, fearing COVID-19, and wondering just how long we are going to need to keep up these restrictive measures. If prayer works, if prayer is a good thing, then why haven’t the prayers of thousands upon millions changed our world situation. I guess it all depends upon what we expect that change to be.
Before offering my answer to why I pray, and why I invite you to pray and to teach your children to pray, let me share what I believe prayer is all about. For me, what I discover in scripture is that prayer is about three things:
rest
relationship
restoration
First of all, we rest in prayer. We come into prayer with all of our emotions, with all of our weariness and needs. In prayer, we can express everything that is going on in our hearts, minds and spirits. God receives it all in love. Like a good cry, a time of prayer can bring us to a place of rest. After emptying our hearts, minds and spirits of all our cares and worries, there is release, peace and a touch of calm. If not, pray some more!
In prayer, we also rest in the words and messages of our tradition. When I repeat the words that generations have offered before me, I rest in the community of faith and in the hope that has sustained generation after generation. I might pray, “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want for anything.” (Psalm 23) or I might start in the psalm just before that with the words that Jesus also prayed, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Psalm 22) I might turn to Ephesians 3:20-21 and pray, “Now to God whose power at work within me is able to accomplish abundantly more than I can ask or imagine, to God be the glory.” The words of Isaiah 41:10 are my constant prayer companion, “Do not fear, for I am with you, do not be afraid for I am your God; I will strengthen you, I will help you, I will hold you up.” And, of course, the words of the Lord’s prayer root and ground me as I pray them multiple times each day, “Our Father, Our Mother, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name…”
I also might turn to the words of hymns or poetry to rest in the tradition of our faith. I find that in the middle of the night the best way to get myself back to sleep is to repeat words of prayers, scripture and song. As I rest in the words of the faith, my body, mind and spirit are able to rest once again.
Secondly, prayer is about relationship. When I pray, I engage in my relationship with God. I might sit (or move) in silence or meditate. I might repeat words of the faith tradition, as noted above. I might use my own words to express what is in my heart. In prayer, I am joining my energy with God’s energy for the mending and tending of this world.
Sometimes, when I am feeling empty, lonely and desolate, I will need to be filled up by God’s loving presence in prayer. I find that this happens even on the days when I am not particularly in tune with God’s presence. I might sit down to pray and mutter, “Where are you, God? I don’t feel you near.” Yet, if I spend time in prayer, there is a peace, a gentleness that surrounds me and reminds me that I am not alone.
In prayer, I am also adding my energy, my love, and my hope to the world. One of the words we use to describe our worship as a faith community is “liturgy.” This word, rooted in Greek, means “the work of the people.” In the early church, it was understood that when one came to worship, you weren’t there just for your own good. You had work to do for others and for the world, and that work was prayer. Christians through the centuries have understood that they have a task, cheerfully embraced, to pray for others and to pray for the world. When we pray for others, we are creating a network of love, of hope and of possibility that embraces them. Often people report, “I knew that you and the congregation were praying for me. I felt it.”
So, in prayer, we enter into our relationship with God, our relationship with the faith community, and our relationship with those for whom we pray. In prayer, we weave together the frayed and damaged fabric of this world. Together, with God, we are part of the mending and tending of the world.
This leads us to the third aspect of prayer, restoration. In prayer, our own souls are restored. In prayer, we are part of the restoration of the world and all its people and creatures. This is not a magical restoration, but a gentle and continuous weaving of which we are a part. We add our colour tones, our wonder, our hope, our compassion, and our dreams into the fabric of the world. And, as we pray in hope, in wonder, in compassion, we discover that hope, wonder and compassion are restored within our own hearts.
The reason we join in worship with a faith community, the reason we read the Bible regularly and learn to hold its phrases and stories in our hearts and minds is to create the building blocks we need for our prayer life. We need the words of our faith and the relationships of faith so that we have somewhere to lean when our own souls are dry and empty. And then we can be there for others who are empty and struggling, sharing our love and compassion.
In the midst of this pandemic, prayer fills us up so that we can reach out to neighbours and friends, even if we need to do so from 6 feet/2 metres distance or via Zoom or phone. Prayer restores relationship in the midst of isolation so that we can share compassionately and generously countering the fear-based tendency to hoard. In prayer, we can find the resourcefulness to try one more time to get through to the Canada Revenue Agency or to our bank, or to face that line up at the grocery store. In prayer, we can discover inspiration to explore a new possibility, a new idea, a new way of doing something.
Prayer is about rest, relationship and restoration. It is not magical but it is wondrous. It is not an easy fix but it is something much more substantial and sustaining. It is not instant but it offers a constant and consistent place to rest our souls in a divine relationship that brings restoration to us and to our world. For this I say, Thanks be to God!
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